Nyadegtaan
“O Father, this is my prayer. Do not, in this hour of our need, turn thy favour from me, but rather guide my arm and strengthen my heart. I am thy child and thy warrior, and thou art my God, to whom there shall never be an equal. O Father, Grace of my Blood, I go now to slay those who slew thee. They are the accursed of this world that corrupt heaven, earth, and sea. If I should fall to the field, I beg thee: do not cast me from thy sight, but establish me among the ranks of all thy beloved children that have gone before. If I should triumph, it shall be not I but thou that I shall call the victor. Praised be thou, Nyadeg my Father, unto the ages of ages.” – the War-Chant of the Solkrinta paladins “No coward ever walked our path. Better to strangle a child in its cradle than to deny the Gift. Tomorrow is mist, and yesterday twilight, so act today. When all else fails, trust in thine instinct. Any man who denies thee knowledge dreams himself thy master. Revere the virtuous; love the gentle; pity the wicked. If sorrow comes upon thee, laugh and praise the Father. Songs outlast speeches. To forget love is to blacken the Gift. The enemy beckons: art thou prepared for battle?” – some proverbs of the Nyadegtaan sorcerers “I have neither blessings nor mage-fire, but take one step closer to my captain, dog, and that will not make a shred of difference, for I am a daughter of Nyadeg!” – Viljautiss of Syerhakha, defending the outpost against orcs Much like Tefaruq, Edrask, or the vanished days of Old Injil, the Nyadegtaan (literally, “Children of Nyadeg”) are something shrouded in mystery and amazement even for the most educated scholars. The essential facts are well known across Kerlonna: the Nyadegtaan are a race of half-dragons, descended from a mighty silver wyrm called Nyadeg who fathered their kind thousands of years ago, when even Old Injil was young. They dwell secluded in the secret mountain city of Ezluthai in the Vrotispal Range, somewhere west of the city of Amvidra and the southern Tlankuram. However, more than that, most men know nothing of. Various fanciful tales have been propagated of this race, and indeed, until historically recently, most accounts of the Nyadegtaan were forced to indulge in speculation and rely on fables. It was Yenatar Malkerian who, in Free Year 10, intruded upon the long seclusion of the Children of Nyadeg by daring to enter Ezluthai and demand the aid of the Ixatsoth, the aristocrats of their race, which was given. Over the next six years, the Nyadegtaan sent forth their finest soldiers to fight alongside the Exalt-General’s New Legions, and they were critical to its eventual triumph. Since then, the Nyadegtaan have been rather more open to the outside world than they had been before, even permitting trustworthy (i.e., non-Cil Adasigan) scholars to enter the city and examine their records. Nevertheless, they prefer to keep apart from the other races, and it is only through the daring of the aforementioned scholars that we have been able to compile this record that, for the first time, tells of the Children of Nyadeg. 'The Nyadegtaan are '''a race apart, though not, per se, estranged. Their origin was not gradual, like many advanced civilizations, but rather, a sort of sudden evolutionary leap. The race began with a Dragon, Nyadeg, who had a taste for human women. Nyadeg used his draconic magic to disguise himself as a human male, and for over a century, set about mating with them. Nyadeg did this not merely out of attraction, but for the purpose of creating a "Holy Army", as Dragons of the Metallic colors (such as Nyadeg) are naturally at war with the dragons of Chromatic colors. In doing so, he broke Draconic Law. The result, nonetheless, was the conception of the Nyadegtaan. The progeny of Nyadeg and countless women, the Nyadegtaan are a fusion of the races of human and dragon, their blood divided in various measures between the two. The Nyadegtaan have since grown from scattered and freakish oddities, hiding in secrecy, to a unified and developed culture. Early History The Nyadegtaan were originally as far flung and scattered as the sundry women with whom Nyadeg had had trysts with. They felt, however, through their Draconic blood, a natural connection to their common father and to each other. Therefore, it did not take long for the Nyadegtaan species as a whole to "find each other", if not form a structured society, and to learn what their progenitor had envisioned for them. Upon learning that Nyadeg intended them to be warriors in a sacred battle against the Chromatics, the Nyadegtaan collectively rejected this destiny. They felt that Nyadeg was using them as mere tools for his own, naturally imbued goal. That he had no concern for their individuality as beings separate from him, or their feelings, whatsoever. They did not want to die in his war. In this rejection, they destroyed Nyadeg's hopes and dreams, if not his heart. The dragon, for whatever purposes he may have brought his progeny into the world to accomplish, still felt a degree of attachment that had not grown dull in the face of the species' numbers. Nyadeg, left bereft of his purpose, sought to sequester himself in the icy northlands he came from, but was attacked upon arrival. White dragons descended upon him in large numbers, without warning, and slew him. The Nyadegtaan, hearing his screams within their blood, went to find their fallen father. Bleeding out in the snow, Nyadeg told them that he no longer wished for them to wage one, final, holy war. He wanted them to return to the mainland of the continent, and to create their own society, their own culture, and to devote that culture to three things. Justice, in all areas, mercy, to temper their righteous fury, and to the destruction of the Chromatic Dragons, by any possible means. In brief, he still wanted them to do what they were created for, but he wanted them to do it of their own accord. He breathed his last breath, and in the rage that comes with the loss of brethren among Dragons, the Nyadegtaan hunted down the white dragons who had slain him. They slew them all, with efficiency and prejudice, then vowed to uphold Nyadeg's dying wishes. The entire race felt responsible for its father's death. The Nyadegtaan felt they never should have turned away from his calling. That shame drives their culture to this day. Beginnings of Culture After the death of their father, the Nyadegtaan of the world began a quick and thorough migration to the Last Sea peninsula. Those who had slain the White Dragons had no need to explain what had occurred. They all naturally understood. Collectively, and without speaking, they began(Those who witnessed his death felt more devoted to him, and formed the sect of paladins. The intelligent and charismatic among the rest of the race formed the less devout sect of sorcerers). Physical Description The Nyadegtaan do not ''literally look like they are the products of a cross between a human and a dragon. Ancient human sources often colourfully depicted them as men with the claws, tails, and heads of dragons. This is incorrect: nonetheless, the Children of Nyadeg are almost universally physically impressive specimens, and to see one for the first time in the flesh is an unforgettable experience. The males stand around six and a half feet tall, the females around six feet and two inches: the tallest of their race have exceeded eight feet, making them as large as orcs or krolgashi. Their bodies are covered with silver, gleaming scales, even on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet. The irises of their eyes look like quicksilver rather than any human eye colour, and like dragons, as the Nyadegtaan age the pupils of their eyes disappear, until by the time that they are elders, their eyes seem like pools of mercury. Like silver dragons, the Nyadegtaan have pointed tongues, and a regal appearance, with a face that slopes beautifully backwards, ending with a pair of long, silver horns with black tips that grow backwards from the head. However, their face is not precisely that of the silver dragon: they lack a spinal crest (although they do have huge, leathery ears), and the actual structure of the face is closer to that of the human, with a nose rising from the face, lips, and teeth that are sharp, but are still recognisably human. Their fingers terminate not with fingernails but in claws. When they stand or walk, the Nyadegtaan do not walk flat upon their feet, but rather walk upon their toes, as four-legged creatures do. They do not need shoes as other peoples do, for their toes have thick scaly bottoms and jagged claws, which suffer little from heat and not at all from cold. They do not have tails at all, for their physiology has no need of such a structure. Like the draconic parent race, the Nyadegtaan have a fragrance of fresh-fallen rain about them. Like humans, however, they bear their children live, and they are mammals, insofar as the mother has breasts to provide milk to her child. The Ixatsoth are those among their race who are born with wings: this occurs at random, with no discernible lineage behind it, and is regarded as a blessing sent from Nyadeg to remind his children of the draconic side of their bloodline. The wings of the Ixatsoth are fully functional, and as a result of their special status, the Ixatsoth constitute the aristocracy of the Nyadegtaan, acting as the political leaders of Ezluthai and the elders of the race. The muscular and skeletal structure of most Nyadegtaan is remarkably human, but the organs more resemble those of dragons, including the draconis fundamentum, the uniquely draconic organ which is the centre of magical power and grants the ability to use breath as a weapon. Owing to their origin from a silver dragon, the Nyadegtaan are almost impervious to heat loss: they can eat clumps of snow on a chilly night without suffering from even mild hypothermia. However, they are distinctly uncomfortable in hot weather, and are vulnerable to magical fire, which can severely upset the elemental balance in their bodies. Mental Description The Nyadegtaan are, in some ways, a refinement of their human half: they are more intelligent and more charismatic, more virtuous and more empathetic. Like humans, they dwell in a settled, united society with houses, writing, art, and an organised religion. However, they are, for the most part, more comparable to elves or dwarves. The Nyadegtaan are a very long-lived race, with some of their kind living long enough to match even the elves. Consequently, they have a slow approach to life, a “long view” that humans sometimes confuse with mere indifference or laziness. The Nyadegtaan, however, are probably some of the least lazy people in Kerlonna. They work slowly, it is true, but not from a lack of energy: rather, it is because they work with meticulous care, ensuring that whatever it is they accomplish is as close to perfection as they can possibly make it. In the practice of making war against the chromatic dragons, this extends to even the process of killing the dragon: the Nyadegtaan prefer to employ gradual tactics of exhausting the beast and draining its strength through a battle of attrition, because they can take their time. However, when the situation calls for it, the Nyadegtaan are willing to suddenly employ overwhelming force to resolve a problematic situation (the Nyadegtaan idiom for this is “to blast it with breath”). The Nyadegtaan live constantly with a very immediate task, handed down to them from Nyadeg the Father: war against the wicked. This dictum has dominated their society for millennia, and has greatly affected the Nyadegtaan worldview. Since all is considered as a military struggle between forces of goodness and forces of evil, the Nyadegtaan have some difficulty thinking of the world in neutral terms. Instead, they tend to categorise everything into two classes: those things that support goodness, their cause, the struggle against evil, the natural; and those that support evil, the chromatic dragons, the spread of darkness, and the unnatural. To many Nyadegtaan, while the fact that there is neutral ground is acknowledged, it does not have any real effect upon the way in which they act and think: militaristically, with everything boiling down to the conflict. Everything is viewed in terms of resources and utility for the war. Their entire way of life is, in some way, given over to this omnipresent struggle. For some Nyadegtaan, that eventually becomes impossibly stifling, sparking rebellious sentiment and a desire to escape the eons-old customs of this people. However, most Nyadegtaan understand perfectly well that they were handed down a covenant by Nyadeg, and it binds them bone deep. He brought their kind into the world for a purpose, and it will be for a purpose that they live, not for anything so lowly as one’s own pleasure or satisfaction. Victory is in the will of the Father. Even the sorcerers, who are otherwise known for their independent and almost irreverent approach to society, do not dare to question this sacred paradigm. Still, most Nyadegtaan will never see direct combat against the chromatic dragons. If they were a uniform race of soldiers, the race’s survival would be in jeopardy, for an army of that size would rouse the chromatic dragons to wage a war whose scope would be terrifying to imagine. No, most Nyadegtaan live normal, quiet lives in Ezluthai, with the exciting work of heroic hunts and daring dragon raids consigned to soldiers, paladins, and sorcerers dwelling out in the wilderness and on the frontiers of Kerlonna. “Normal” Nyadegtaan are seen as soldiers against the chromatic dragons as well, but their support for the war is simpler: they supply food, shelter, society, art, and family in which the soldier can recuperate after returning from the campaign trail. The Nyadegtaan personality has some aspects that are wholly derived from the draconic side. The most noticeable to outsider eyes is the fact that they experience the same “hoard-hunger” as dragons do. Although they do not create great piles of treasure and roll in it as dragons sometimes do, the Nyadegtaan are collectors of all things valuable and rare, whether that be art, gold, or books. As a result, their homes are astoundingly beautiful places: even the little cottage of a greenhouse gardener will be immaculately clean, with an Idroslekhi tiger-skin hanging from the wall, gleaming silver plates on the table, and golden or brazen statuary by the windows. Like silver dragons, their tastes tend towards things that show workmanship, such as cut gemstones. After death, a Nyadegta passes on their hoard on to their children. The accumulation of treasures corresponds to one’s rank in the society: the Ixatsoth have some of the greatest stores of treasure to be found among the people, and their great Hall is a veritable palace and museum, full of ancient books, silken paintings, statuary, and jewels. Even the austere clerics care about such accumulation of riches, since they celebrate it as the union between the draconic love for hoards and the human pursuit of beauty and perfection. However, the immoral acquisition of said treasures is rejected, and “tainted” hoards that were gathered by such means are taken back out among the normal world and given away to those more deserving of them. Alignment The Nyadegtaan are wholly committed to the causes of righteousness, mercy, and virtue, and have been ever since they swore their oath to Nyadeg as their Father lay dying upon the icy shores at Iejirskarag. Like him, they have been driven by this purpose as the central aspect of their entire civilisation. For thousands of years, they have devoted their powers to the destruction of evil dragons, and although a few have fallen prey to the darkness of hatred that comes from waging such a war, most have remained pure of heart and purpose. Therefore, almost all Nyadegtaan are of Good alignment, and a very few have fallen to Evil and become Irlymtaan, the servants of chromatic dragons. Because of the way in which they view the world, it is virtually unthinkable for a Nyadegta to become Neutral: they will either hold to the path of righteousness, or fall from it utterly. Striking a middle path between the two is not really possible. On the law vs. chaos axis, the choice is quite open. Nyadeg himself was neither, since he pursued both an ordered plan, and yet did so in defiance of draconic law, and did so sometimes quite unpredictably. The paladins hold to a highly ordered path of discipline and self-control, while the sorcerers embrace the pure, untamed energy of the draconic Gift within, making the former group Lawful and the latter Chaotic. The clerics, on the other hand, are committed to Neutral Good, since they are closest to the Spirit of Nyadeg, and share His view upon the world. Outside of these three groups, the ethical alignment of a Nyadegta varies based on temperament. Relations The Nyadegtaan view the world in a dramatic and moralistic fashion, and they have trouble with seeing anything in “shades of grey:” they are largely moral absolutists, due to the militaristic culture in which they were raised. As such, they tend to view outside peoples in a similarly extremist manner. For eons, they viewed humans as their inferiors, a race whose ambition, vitality, and vigour were unrestrained by any lasting sense of honour or righteous self-restraint. This attitude was likely affected strongly by the fact that very early in its history, Ezluthai was attacked by the wizards of Old Injil, who looted the bones of Nyadeg. It took tens of centuries for mankind to earn the trust of the Nyadegtaan after that. For most of that time, the Nyadegtaan popularly believed that their “draconic half” was the superior side, and that the “human half” was something to be overcome and abandoned. This attitude was abandoned after the horrors of the False Dragon’s attack against Ezluthai: her madness revealed what became of a Nyadegtaan who sought to abandon their humanity completely. Although this helped the Nyadegtaan to rethink their attitude towards mankind, they nonetheless remained a removed and aloof people, due largely to their belief that the “lower races” were not unified or righteous enough to rally in aid of the endless war against the chromatic dragons. It was not until the arrival of Yenatar Malkerian in Ezluthai in Free Year 10 that the Nyadegtaan finally encountered a human that they truly found to be “worthy.” His appeal to the Ixatsoth for aid against the orcish threat was so powerful that it somehow tapped into the collective consciousness of their race, giving them visions of war, the Fall of Marnoz, and the full forces of Yenatar’s army. With this, the Nyadegtaan were so swayed that they decided to aid the human forces, and threw their lot in with Yenatar’s New Legions. For the next six years they fought, bled, and died alongside allies of various race, and the Great Orc-Wars satisfied their moralistic view of the world, with the orcs seen as a force of unholy, unflinching evil. At the conclusion of the war, the Nyadegtaan made it clear to the Lord Malkerian that while he was forever their ally and friend, they would not help him establish a Second Federation, for that was in opposition to their isolationist attitudes towards the world. Since that time, the Nyadegtaan have been remarkably involved in the outside world, compared to ancient days: their adventurers travel on quests for lowlanders, they police the Vrotispal Range to make it safe for human settlements, and they allow trusted outsider travellers and researchers admittance into their city. Still, the settlement of outsiders in Ezluthai is unthinkable, as is miscegenation with alien races. The Nyadegtaan have a curious relationship with the kobolds. This draconic race was largely unknown to the Nyadegtaan in the Marnic period or before, as the Nyadegtaan did not often travel into the White Thirst: the blue dragons there were too numerous and powerful for the Nyadegtaan to easily combat them. However, during the Great Orc-Wars, a great catastrophe struck the kobolds in their homeland when the desert gnomes attempted to exterminate them. The refugees of the kobold race came to southern Idroslekh, where they quickly began propagating in order to make up for the numbers they had lost to the gnomes. When the Nyadegtaan encountered these early kobold settlers, they were shocked at the sheer, bloody-minded perseverance that the kobolds exhibited. The half-dragons found themselves somewhat disturbed by the kobolds: the little draconic people, for some unfathomable reason, paid homage to chromatic and metallic dragons alike, with preference given to neither. Since that first contact, the Nyadegtaan have done what they can to help the kobolds and to dissuade them from the reverence of chromatics. The Nyadegtaan see the kobolds paternalistically: they are brethren in some distant, forgotten way, and they must be guided towards the path of righteousness. Dragons are the relatives with whom the Nyadegtaan have the most fraught relationship. Chromatics, of course, are simply wicked foes to be erased from the world by whatever means possible. There have been a vanishingly rare few Nyadegtaan who have turned their backs on everything that their race believes, and joined the side of the chromatic dragons: such traitors are not called ‘Nyadegtaan’, but ‘Irlymtaan,’ literally meaning “children of the enemy.” The Irlymtaan are seen as something akin to living blasphemies against Nyadeg, and they are given neither leniency nor exception by their estranged cousins. Metallic dragons are another matter entirely for the Nyadegtaan. Most metallic dragons find themselves to be most uncomfortable with the Nyadegtaan, for their goals coincide almost exactly with those of the metallic wyrms, and yet the origin of the race lies in a violation of one of the most fundamental laws of dragonkind. Most metallics try to avoid contact with the Nyadegtaan, finding them both troublesome and disturbing, especially if the Nyadegtaan in question make grander proposals of an alliance to wipe out the chromatics throughout a given region. Those few metallics that allow the children of Nyadeg to contact them are by no means close allies, unless they are forced to be so for purposes of self-defence: however, they are willing and able to work together against the chromatics and evil in a particular area, making life there better for both himself and the local Nyadegtaan. The only significant exceptions to this rule are Zehaartokrixath and Kaivroshtagerrus, the two bronze wyrms responsible for the creation of Cagas Guapran. Both wyrms seek, through the propagation of their religion, to unite Kerlonna, and the Nyadegtaan are included in that planned eventual union. Both the wyrms and their offspring, the Blood of Heaven, have done much in recent generations (usually in various guises as human, half-elf, and so on) to open contact between the Nyadegtaan and the outside world, and especially to establish contacts between the Nyadegtaan and the Unity. Although the Nyadegtaan are unlikely to convert to Cagas Guapran anytime in the next few centuries, it is nonetheless important that they become familiarised with and friendly to the religion, so that when the time comes, they will do nothing to stop its eventual rise to total dominance in Kerlonna. Unbeknownst to the Nyadegtaan, Zehaartokrixath, the male, has taken the shape of a Nyadegtaan cleric come from distant lands and explored Ezluthai, and even visited the Ixatsoth. His intentions were entirely friendly, and his purpose was to assess the strength of the city and its preparedness for any battle that might have been on its way. Social Structure The Nyadegtaan make up a small race, but they are, in a way, organised like a nation. As such, there is a great deal of hierarchies and organisations proportionate to their numbers. Nyadegtaan families are based around the nuclear group, with neither the mother nor father taking precedence in authority. Marriage is seen as a partnership between equals, although sometimes one of the partners will have a more domineering personality and thus will naturally gravitate towards a more commanding position. By and large, the Nyadegtaan are neither remarkably hierarchical nor excessively egalitarian, making them much like humanity, with a hierarchy based more on talents than on bloodline. The military (which, proportionate to the total population, is one of the largest in Kerlonna) has a strict chain of command based on office, and offices are assigned specifically by the Ixatsoth. The aristocracy of the Nyadegtaan, as was mentioned above, are the Ixatsoth, those among their people who were born with wings. Rather than belonging to noble families, as is the tradition among humans, the Ixatsoth are determined by this randomly appearing sign of connection back to the draconic blood. The Ixatsoth have both some aptitude in sorcerous power and a measure of divine magic, though they are specialised in neither to the extent of the paladins or the sorcerers. The primary focus of the Ixatsoth is both day-to-day governance of Ezluthai and the Nyadegtaan outposts across Kerlonna, and also the endless war against the chromatic dragons, which they are the commanders of. As the rulers of the Nyadegtaan, the Ixatsoth have authority over the sorcerous lineages, the Solkrinta, and the army. They do not, however, hold sway over the clerics, who are in direct communion with the god, and who are outside the normal hierarchy of Nyadegtaan society altogether. The Nyadegtaan paladins belong to a holy martial order with a strictly ranked hierarchy. The order is properly called the Solkrinta, which means “great shield” in Ezluthain Draconic. Membership is to a certain extent voluntary but also chosen: a novice is selected by the elders of the order, who can glean the will of the Spirit of Nyadeg to a limited extent (that is, with nowhere near the clarity of the clerics). The elders can thus determine which Nyadegtaan youths are candidates for the order: most youths selected are between twenty-eight and thirty-five years of age. The novice is bound to a full-fledged paladin of the same sex, who serves as that novice’s tutor and as an elder sibling figure. The novice, in turn, serves as the paladin’s squire and something of a personal servant. The match is chosen carefully so that the personalities of novice and paladin do not clash, for the bond lasts five years, and it is strictly required to be platonic. At the end, the novice and the paladin go forth together on a chromatic dragon hunt in the wilds beyond Ezluthai. The slain dragon’s blood is collected, and the novice is taken back to Ezluthai. In the holy Caverns of Adamant beneath the city, the novice is stripped naked and baptised with the blood of the dragon, officially bringing them into the order. The brothers and sisters of the order are ranked both by their seniority and by the number of chromatic dragons that they have slain. When they become too old to continue the war, the paladins become elders, who abandon their armour for a contemplative’s robe, focusing their minds upon the Spirit of Nyadeg and the education of the younger members of the order. The sorcerers do not belong to one unified order, but rather to a disparate collection of what are called ‘lineages,’ which are something like a cross between study groups and adoptive families. The number of lineages is never constant: sometimes one splits apart, while others may fuse together. However, there are never more than a dozen or fewer than six. Those who choose to follow the path of the sorcerer dwell apart from normal Nyadegtaan society among the sorcerers, where the focus in life is upon the development of arcane abilities and war against the chromatic dragons. There is no one particular teacher for an initiate into a lineage: rather, all members of the lineage take turns to act as teachers and friends to the initiate. When an initiate is deemed capable enough in their sorcerous powers, they are set out upon a quest to destroy a dragon, much as members of the Solkrinta are sent, until their work has been done. Clerics are individually chosen, not by any mortal agency, but by the Spirit of Nyadeg alone, to do His will on Maelris among His children. As such, they are radically equal to one another, for each is under orders from the god, and therefore each has precisely as much spiritual authority as another. That said, those who are more powerful in the mastery of divine magic tend to be leaders when the situation calls for such, due to their superior ability to glean the god’s will. They are revered as the priesthood of Ezluthai, and serve in the various capacities of exorcists, teachers, prophets (this only rarely), and healers. While the sorcerers and the paladins are critical to the war against the chromatic dragons, the clerics allow the race to have a sense of itself apart from the war, a living tradition of holiness. If, in some distant future, the war against the chromatics were finally won, the work of the paladins and sorcerers would end, but the work of the clerics would endure. Culture For over four thousand years, the Nyadegtaan have been a united people with a common purpose: to destroy the chromatic dragons. The fact that they have not succeeded yet has in no way discouraged them from their goal, for they hold that if it had not been for them, Kerlonnic civilisation would never have gotten beyond the phase of mere farming villages, but would only have been torn down again and again by the malice of fell dragonkind. Whether this is true or not, the Nyadegtaan have an epic opinion of themselves, seeing their people as the offspring of a divine dragon, their purpose as a god-given commandment, and their crusade as an achievement unequalled by any other race. This self-esteem is as powerful as that of Guild wizards, a confidence that seems almost like madness to those who do not fully understand the Nyadegtaan worldview. Because of their fantastically high opinion of themselves, the Nyadegtaan rarely deign to mingle with other peoples, preferring to keep it in their own race. This isolation has bred a culture unlike any other in the world, with art, language, and philosophy that have been developing for millennia. Even with the recent opening of the Nyadegtaan to the outside world, their culture remains almost entirely untouched by outside influences. Many Nyadegtaan cannot even read the books of the outsider races. And to this day, the vast majority of Nyadegtaan find the idea of mating with those of alien race to be repugnant, even if it is a human: they firmly believe that they were chosen by Nyadeg to remain precisely half-dragon and half-human, and not to dilute it with anything else. Consequently, Nyadegtaan clerics will refuse to bless such a union, and it is grounds for expulsion from the paladin order or from a sorcerous lineage. Nyadegtaan music takes as its primary instrument the voice, which has a similar range to that of humans. Unlike humans, however, the Nyadegtaan can roar like dragons, which is terrifying enough when it comes from a dragon’s throat: when a creature with the shape of a man creates such a sound, it is downright unearthly. Besides the voice, they use instruments that are unfamiliar to humanity: a sort of flat harp that is played by striking a series of wooden keys rather than actually plucking the strings. There are great flutes carved out of the bones of chromatic dragons, sculpted into bulbous shapes to provide an ululating, deep music that is magically charged. And there are “voice-drums” that can have their pitches adjusted so that they can be played in harmonies, providing the sound of stamping feet or rainfall. The Nyadegtaan have passed down traditional ballads and war-hymns for thousands of years, but most musical works are unique to the performer, spontaneously created and not recorded, so that the next generation may be free to create its own forms of music without having to worry about that which was created by the old. Poetry and the art of storytelling, in Ezluthain Draconic, do not exclusively revolve around the themes of dragon-hunting and glorifying Nyadeg, but that is often what they do. The most important poem of the Nyadegtaan is Servyesh dägri’Nyadegtaanu, ‘the Song of the Children of Nyadeg in Exile”, which recounts their history between the death of Nyadeg and the establishment of Ezluthai. It is an epic account that delves into theology, philosophising, and some of the most beautiful phrases to be found in any language of Kerlonna. It has never been translated in its entirety, although a few half-elven scholars who are experts in Ezluthain Draconic have been attempting to render the epic in Old Marnic for the last thirty years. Marriage and Love Mating and marriage are very serious matters in Nyadegtaan culture, much as they are among humans. Among normal Nyadegtaan who are not sworn to the ways of clerics, paladins, or sorcerers, eligibility for marriage is not considered until about the age of thirty-five, and even that is considered unusually early: most do not begin courting until about age forty. Courtships can last as long as fifteen years, and they are long, romantic affairs, when poetry is written, glances are exchanged, and rambling walks taken through gardens. However, because their courtship lasts so very long, the Nyadegtaan do not typically embrace romance with the same fervid tenacity as humans might. They are strictly monogamous, but they may take months-long breaks from even seeing their lover, occupied with other endeavours: hunts for dragons, learning a craft or a language, and so on. When courtship finally draws to a close, the two Nyadegtaan consummate their relationship: since they are a long-lived race, their libido is quite weak compared to a human’s, though it is strong compared to a dragon’s. After consummation is the marriage ceremony. This is always done on the shores of the holy lake in Ezluthai, where the couple is immersed in the water together by a cleric. After the marriage ceremony is done, the Nyadegtaan focus on bearing their first child. The Nyadegtaan have few children per couple: three is the norm, but four or five are not unheard of. The Nyadegtaan remain fertile until around the age of three hundred, so assuming that most get married around the age of sixty, there is a two hundred and forty year window in which to bear and raise children. Faced with this great span of time, most choose to raise children with tremendous age gaps between them: most often, a couple does not choose to bear another child until the previous one has begun courting. Of course, twins (and even rarer, triplets) are an exception to all this: Nyadegtaan parents can find themselves slightly overwhelmed by the demands of two children where they had planned on one, since they are so used to taking life at a slow and measured pace. Sorcerers live apart from normal Nyadegtaan life, high upon the rim of the mountain above Ezluthai. Their way of life is focused on liberty and virtue in equal measure. They do not practice monogamy, but instead participate in a relatively promiscuous form of sexuality, with the main stipulation (besides compassion and empathy) being that non-sorcerers in no way become involved, and that they never romance within a lineage. Paladins, too, live apart from the normal Nyadegtaan, dwelling in cloister at the edge of the basin in which Ezluthai sits. Although not required to be chaste, many are, and those that are not are, like the sorcerers, required to mate within their own relatively small group. Monogamy, already valued in Nyadegtaan culture, is given an added emphasis: the mates are required to maintain each other’s armour, weapons, and gear, and to never leave the other’s side during combat, even for otherwise practical reasons. Mated soldiers are regarded as some of the best soldiers, as they will fight all the more fanatically to protect their spouse. Many heart-breaking lays have been sung of mates who have died in battle together, leaving orphaned children and a legacy of greatness. Clerics are always chaste, without exception, owing to the singular nature of their devotion to the Spirit of Nyadeg. To open their hearts to the Father, they forego most worldly pursuits, and chief among these is the pursuit of a mate. Those who have become clerics say that when the Spirit has called upon them, the joy that it offers them surpasses every other joy imaginable, and the desire for worldly pleasure withers then and there, replaced by a pure and absolute adoration for the god. Love and romance among the Nyadegtaan are something that outsiders sometimes get very bizarre ideas about. Of course, since all Nyadegtaan ultimately share the same Father, they are very closely related to each other: they are all, in a way, half-brothers and half-sisters. Therefore, to outsider observers, it seems as if the Nyadegtaan mating with each other is incest. However, this is not true, for two reasons: first, the draconic blood that runs through their veins is far more “versatile” than human blood. Therefore, despite the same paternal blood flowing through their veins, the Nyadegtaan do not actually suffer from the results of inbreeding unless they breed within their immediate family over generations. Second, the Nyadegtaan “brotherhood” is not seen as preclusive to sexuality, since there is a difference between “race-family” and “house-family.” All Nyadegtaan are race-brethren, but the house-family is made up of just a few people. Traditional taboos about incest apply just as strongly to one’s house-family members as they would among humans. However, the Nyadegtaan lack a different taboo that is common amongst most human cultures, and that is the taboo against homosexuality. For the Nyadegtaan, an emphasis on breeding, on “spreading the race”, is absent, and those who do not contribute to producing more Nyadegtaan are not seen as decadent. Marriage and mating are seen as spiritual and emotional matters foremost, the actual act of sexuality being something that occupies the thoughts of Nyadegtaan far less than it does those of humans. Therefore, Nyadegtaan in homosexual relationships are given extraordinary rights found elsewhere only among elves: they marry and adopt children. However, a strong spirit of monogamy remains present nonetheless, and bisexual preference must be expressed with one partner exclusively. Location The original children of Nyadeg were born scattered across ancient Kerlonna, and many of them derived from ethnicities of humans that no longer even exist. After Nyadeg was slain upon what is now Wyrmfall Island, the Nyadegtaan constructed a temple at the site of his death known as Iejirskarag, the “blood-wash”. They dwelt there for thirty years, making Iejirskarag increasingly elaborate and ornate, hunting chromatic dragons, and establishing a common identity together as a people. However, they soon became aware that the site was problematic: radiations of arcane energy from the dead body of Nyadeg and spells cast by sorcerers had severely warped the local magical field, and invocations to the Father had apparently begun to be answered with divine magic. The whole island was so saturated with magic that any non-Nyadegta that approached it would have gone swiftly insane without protection. Even the Nyadegtaan could feel it affecting them, seeping into their dreams and bodies. They could not remain there without eventually succumbing to the magic and losing any sense of separate identity. So, they departed, and began a twenty-year period of migration. They crossed the Last Seas first from Wyrmfall Island to Edrask, and then beyond to Kerlonna. As they wandered, they could feel some sort of beacon in the south, calling them. At times, they attempted to settle among humans and spread the message, but their alien appearance and crusading ideals did not appeal to the humans of far antiquity, who rejected them. At times, too, the Nyadegtaan became embroiled in massive dragon hunts, delving deep into the wilds to hunt down chromatic dragons that had been raiding the surrounding lands. However, the Song always drew them onward. They eventually reached the northern foothills of the Vrotispal Range, and through many seasons, their stumbling caravans crept south along the mountain slopes and passes. At last, they reached the highest mountain of the Range. The Song drew them upward, and after struggling up the mountain’s sides, all the way to its summit, they discovered that it was an extinct volcano. Lying in its caldera was an intensely blue lake, surrounded by a fair, grassy basin, and here they made their home, Ezluthai, the “pools of refuge.” Today, Ezluthai is the oldest city in Kerlonna, a hidden place of beauty and rest amidst the heights of the world. In the cliffs at the edge of the basin, the Solkrinta have carved a fortress; high upon the ridges above, the sorcerers dwell in little hamlets. There are about ten thousand Nyadegtaan in Ezluthai, but precise numbers are unknown to any outside authorities. Yet Ezluthai is not their only settlement. Scattered along the Vrotispal Range are nine outposts, or, as the Nyadegtaan term them, “the Hunting Lodges.” These outposts are military bases from which the Nyadegtaan wage their eternal war against the chromatic dragons, nestled in defensible locations far from any civilised habitation. Each outpost is home to only about seventy-five to a hundred, although they occasionally host outsider adventurers come to join them in the great hunt. Each is an independent and self-sufficient community, although they are connected by a common military hierarchy. They are kept largely separate from Ezluthai, although some of them are only a day’s flight away for the Ixatsoth. The outposts are, going from south to north: Thraedov; Vivex; Syerhakha; Rabeizvek; Tolsyrj; Iskurthi; Alxoars; Kepeskyrj; and Sjachuh. There are yet more Nyadegtaan outposts. Within the Siirimat Gulf, in eastern Taresani, lies an island that is officially part of Paakirjä, yet so isolated as to be mostly beyond the knowledge of even the mainland inhabitants of Taresani: Kasijerne. On the northwestern tip of the otherwise human-ruled island lies a village known as Daenshre. It is the strategic centre of all Nyadegtaan activities in Taresani, and is heavily fortified with both military defences and with warding magic of the sorcerers. Some two hundred Nyadegtaan can be found there, although at any given time, about half of them will be out on various missions on the island. Uniquely, these Nyadegtaan do not only hunt dragons; they are also enthusiastic participants in counter-orcish warfare, often striking both by going on missions deep into Hentölla and slaying their way through orcish bands in order to reach and destroy a chromatic dragon established in the northern wilds. It is, however, a functioning community, and has existed in its present state for almost a thousand years. The largest Nyadegtaan settlement outside of Ezluthai is a fortress deep in the Great Western Dakylsthas, the Old Delving. Although originally an ancient citadel of the Döz-Idros, the fortress was abandoned some thirteen centuries ago when a green dragon took the range for its own. In due time, the Nyadegtaan were attracted, and they attacked the dragon. Leading them was a headstrong maiden named Thefarji, a cunning and violent soldier, neither paladin nor sorcerer. So bold was she that she, foolishly, ran to attack and to kill it herself. When she burst into the dragon’s inner sanctum, it, surprisingly, did not try to fight to the death, but instead made a simple offer: it would teach a forbidden path of draconic lore in exchange for her allowing it to escape. This led, eventually, to the worst crisis in the history of the Nyadegtaan, with Thefarji becoming the accursed False Dragon, the greatest of the Irlymtaan. During the years of her rise to power, the Old Delving became her base of operations, in which Irlymtaan, half-chromatic creatures of various origin, and human dragon-cultists fallen under her sway sacrificed captured humans, studied the blackest arts of sorcery, and struck deals with various local chromatic wyrms in order to create an alliance against Ezluthai. Though Thefarji herself was slain upon the heights of Ezluthai along with many of her soldiers, other allies of hers retreated to the Old Delving. Several years after Thefarji’s destruction, the Solkrinta launched an all-out assault against the remnants within the Old Delving, and they were forced to kill all of them. Today, however, the Old Delving has become a sprawling stronghold of the race, inhabited by some six hundred and fifty Nyadegtaan. The Old Delving is largely separate from Ezluthai, and its inhabitants are a queer, proud lot, direct descendants of the heroes who expunged the servants of the False Dragon. Religion In the period of the race’s original emergence, most of the first-generation Nyadegtaan would likely have followed the tribal religions into which they were born (if their human relatives accepted them), or else were largely irreligious nomads too occupied with the matter of staying alive (if the case were otherwise). Both factions would have been profoundly shocked and troubled by the cataclysmic grandeur of their father’s vision, which betrayed self-confidence so profound (or megalomaniacal) that the great wyrm seemed to think himself something of a god. In the aftermath of Nyadeg’s death, however, the Nyadegtaan found themselves upon the edge of the world, in the tundra of Wyrmfall Island, attempting to make sense of what had befallen them. Somehow, they had sensed, as a race, his horror and anguish as he fell to the rapacious white dragons, and the complete and heartbreaking paternal love that he had felt for them as he lay dying in the surf. Such emotional intensities had a way of shaking their deepest assumptions: how had hundreds of disparate people felt, in synaesthetic intensity, the very things that their father felt? It should not be surprising, then, that some among the Nyadegtaan announced that their Father was no mere dragon, but had been on the path to godhood, which had been completed with his sacrifice. These Nyadegtaan made a practice of praying before his body (soon stripped to the bones) and invoking his name with the same solemnity as that of any deity. Indeed, these first cultists began to discourage the practice of any other religion as proselytes, calling for all “the Father’s children to hold holy His name together.” The records are extremely murky, but what is clear is that during the long retreat upon Wyrmfall Island, the first paladins emerged during the repeated chromatic attacks upon the Nyadegtaan encampments, summoning divine magic to smite their vile enemies. With the revelation that worship of Nyadeg had granted these warriors holy powers, the conviction spread among more of the Nyadegtaan, which in turn empowered more of the paladins. By the twentieth year of their exile upon the island, all of the Nyadegtaan had come to believe that their Father was at least a celestial being, if not a full god. Soon, even clerics of the Father were arising among their people, although very few. The Nyadegtaan carried this faith with them as they travelled across the seas to Kerlonna and to Ezluthai, and when they settled there upon the mountain, the clerics knelt in the lake’s water and joined their hands, singing a potent blessing. When they were done, they had consecrated the lake, making it pure and ever-fresh holy water. Today, worship of Nyadeg is so embedded in the cultural consciousness of his descendants that few even suspect that their first ancestors ever revered any other god. Curiously, the Nyadegtaan do not worship their Father in temples, mainly because all of Ezluthai is, in its way, consecrated to him. Small shrines are maintained instead, decorated with various offerings: flowers, candles, incense, the teeth or small bones of chromatic dragons, and statues of metallic dragons. The highest rituals of the Nyadegtaan are conducted at the lakeshore, with the clerics stripped naked and standing stomach-deep in the holy water, praising the Father and summoning potent divine magic to renew His blessings on the city of Ezluthai. The lake figures prominently in all Nyadegtaan ritual: when one of the Nyadegtaan dies, their body is cleansed with the water, which somehow prevents the body’s decay. Likewise, when a dragon-hunter has returned from a mission, their first task is to “wash the blood from their hands”, a ritual gesture of spiritual purification. When the False Dragon was blasted out of the skies above Ezluthai during her attack centuries ago, her carcass tumbled into the lake. According to an eyewitness citizen named Ikilvayezdraš, “as her vile form hit the waters, all of a moment there was a fearful hissing and a steaming, and it was most painful to look upon the waters, for her shape was shining as brightly as if it were a second sun. The waters frothed up and boiled ferociously, and there was a great column of reeking smoke rising. … When they sought to find her body after the battle had ceased, there was no trace. The hallowed lake had consumed her whole, and burned her blaspheming corruption away to nothingness.” The beliefs of the Nyadegtaan are, as far as religions go, fairly straightforward: Nyadeg, the Father of their race, was a mortal dragon, but ascended and became divine after his death. He is infinitely benevolent, desiring the destruction of the chromatic dragons principally but also all other forms of evil in the material realms of Maelris. He is gathering an army, made up of all worthy Nyadegtaan that have gone before, in the celestial realms, with which he will one day return to the mortal realms and complete the holy war which he had anticipated. It is something of a tribal, or ethnic, religion, and the Nyadegtaan often feel insulted when outsiders worship Nyadeg, for the dragon-folk believe that the worship of their Father should be maintained by them alone. The Nyadegtaan also believe that the inevitable result of the metallic-chromatic conflict will be an apocalyptic war across the world, and that Nyadeg will come again in glory, and his people will be the vanguard to lead the forces of good to absolute victory. However, they have no way of knowing when this will happen, and it is the general consensus among Nyadegtaan scholars that this cataclysm is many thousands of years yet in the future, although a few eccentrics have always been found to believe that the event is almost at hand. Language The Nyadegtaan dialect, when they speak the languages of other peoples, is curiously antiquated and affected-seeming. This is mainly due to their isolation from the world: the resources with which they learn outsider languages tend to be outdated by at least two or three human generations, and, owing to the slower pace of their lives, the dragon-folk feel little impetus to spend much energy in the search for newer material. Furthermore, they have an utterly distinct accent, sibilant and stately slow, with somewhat odd realisations of dental consonants owing to the different structure of their teeth. They, however, feel little difficulties with learning foreign languages, owing to the elevated intellect that is bestowed upon them by their draconic heritage. They do tend to pepper their vocabulary with Draconic words, especially when they are angry: the nuances of Draconic profanity, when translated, are both subtler and somewhat more hair-raising than any human obscenity. The Nyadegtaan form of Draconic, known as Ezluthain Draconic, is, like Kobold Draconic, not nearly as mercurial and bewildering as High Draconic: they may be more intelligent than are lowlanders, but even the Ixatsoth can stumble somewhat in a conversation with a true dragon. The Nyadegtaan are a literate people, and use a modified form of Draconic glyphs, typically carving them into rock or painting them upon parchment. The Nyadegtaan generally do not expect outsiders to learn their language, and so any Nyadegta who is planning on living outside of Ezluthai at some point in their life is expected to master at least Old Marnic, if not other human and nonhuman tongues. If they were to encounter any outsider who could speak Ezluthain Draconic, a Nyadegta would likely be stunned into speechlessness: it is one of their racial conceits that their tongue is “impossibly difficult,” and they feel perhaps an undue pride in its esoteric nature. Classes The undisciplined rage of barbarians appeals little to the Nyadegtaan. Most of their people have at least a moderate inclination towards lawful and orderly behaviour, and those few that do not, the sorcerers, are arcane experts, uninterested in the highly physical nature of a barbarian’s pursuit. Bards are those who weave together the pursuit of a musician’s craft with the arcane power of the dragon that lies within the flesh, granting the power to sing songs of inspiration and hope to the Children of Nyadeg. The lays of a Nyadegtaan bard are often somewhat alien, yet beautiful nonetheless, to the ears of outsider races. Clerics are the children of the god, who do not choose their path, but are chosen, instead. They are fewer in number than either the sorcerers or the paladins, and most of them reside within Ezluthai, where they serve as healers, spiritual teachers, and even as objects of veneration themselves. The calling of the druid has almost never come to the Nyadegtaan, for they are a thoroughly civilised people concerned with a mission to destroy one particular race of creature. Some few have taken up the calling, but they were exiles from the people, and they are not found in the records of Ezluthai. Although the paladins are the flashiest of the Nyadegtaan soldiers, the majority are fighters, who harness neither arcane nor divine power, but instead use the trusted strength of their muscles and their weapons. Despite their lack of magical ability, even these fighters will happily use the power of their breath in a combat situation that demands it. The paladins are one of the pillars of Nyadegtaan society, an order whose records stretch back thousands of years into the past. They were the first race to found a paladin order, and in some myths, it is suggested that it was a Nyadegta who first taught humanity the path of the paladin. Rangers are an unusual lot, to be found out beyond Ezluthai. Most Nyadegtaan rangers can be found either in the hunting lodges along the Vrotispal Range, or else out in the wide wilderness of Kerlonna, hunting chromatic dragons as human hunters might pursue tigers and bears. Culturally, the Nyadegtaan often express distaste for the path of the rogue, since they are physically so large and noticeable, and because they are more interested in the thrill of glorious combat against the dragon, rather than the dirty work of sneaking up on the dragon and landing a crippling blow before it notices. However, those few of their kind that purse the rogue’s path are often terrifically successful hunters. The sorcerers are those who embrace the Gift, the draconic aspect of their heritage. The Gift is the fire in their blood, the ice in their breath, the ancient will in their minds. Celebrants of Nyadeg’s draconic nature, the sorcerers dwell apart from other Nyadegtaan, working to refine their powers and to use them against the chromatic dragons in the eternal war. Thankfully, there have been no Irlymtaan warlocks: to think of the corrupt power of the dragon’s blood, mixed with that of Hell, is disturbing. Warlords are dashing and heroic military captains, rather akin to bards or paladins, who lead the hunt against a dragon with both charisma and physical strength: they serve as the leaders of the hunting lodges in the Vrotispal Range.